


Her green eyes burn black for Vanessa.

by Fanfic_Annie



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Breaking Up & Making Up, Developing Relationship, Emotions, F/F, Feelings, Heartache, Intimacy, Love, Vanity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 03:37:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15986801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fanfic_Annie/pseuds/Fanfic_Annie
Summary: Charity unravels.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm foreseeing the heartache to come. Its a bit of a rough read but if you can stick with it, it's ok in the end.

Her green eyes burn black for Vanessa. 

They used to burn green. Deep green, like clear, shining emeralds. Back when their love was new. And pure. Back when she could believe, trick herself, that maybe they had something that could work. That could last. That could be the thing she’s always dreamt of, always hung onto a tiny glimmer of hope for, no matter how deep it was buried. Hope that someone would see the good in her. Hope that there was good in her. Hope that someone would search it out and hold it and cherish it until it grew to be the biggest part of her. Hope that someone would take her heart in their hands, and nurture it back to life. 

Her eyes burned green before. Before her past got vomited up for all to see. Before the ugliness that lives inside her that she has spent a lifetime squashing down, locking away, shouted her name too loudly and showed the world who she truly is. Before her shameful, dispicable past, her bad choices, her poor decisions, got put on a glittering stage with her loved ones jostling for a seat at the judges' table.

Her eyes burned green before. Before Vanessa saw her. Truly saw her. Saw her For the filthy dirty lying whore that she is. 

So it’s gone now. Vanessa looking at her as if she could walk on water. Vanessa standing by her, standing up for her. Vanessa's unwavering support because she’s worth it. She’s not worth it and Vanessa knows that now. 

Her green eyes burn black for Vanessa. They burn with shame. With sorrow. With loss. She can’t even look at her, be in the same room with her. The humiliation rips through her, so hard that her lungs stop working and her body freezes. And all she can hear is screaming. Screaming for her lies, for her foolishness in believing Vanessa’s words. For kidding herself that there are happy endings.

Vanessa is the closest she has ever got to love. Maybe it was love, she doesn't know. She knows that she burns fierce and hot for her. She knows that she would lay down her life for her without a backward glance. She knows that no one, no one has made her feel like Vanessa makes her feel. Like she is someone who deserves to be here. Who is more than a scrawny teenage piece of meat for use by whoever's attention she catches. 

She thought it was good, their love. She thought they were close. But now, now that her secrets are out, now the boxes in her memory have been ripped open and the painful truths spilled out across her mind, poisoning her breath and dissolving her will, the gulf between her loathing and Vanessa's faith has never been wider. Her evil and Vanessa's mercy. Her shame and Vanessa's glory. Her hate and Vanessa's love. The chasm is too big now. So broad they can hardly see each other across it. And they soon forget who they really are. They get lost in the idea of each other. Vanessa sees who she wants to see, not who Charity really is. 

Her green eyes burn black for Vanessa. They burn with despair. That she is cursed to love from afar, idolising the false images they have built. That what they had is gone, never to be rekindled. She doesn't know how to go on like that. How to continue breathing. How to keep the blood moving through her veins. She doesn't have the energy or the will. Just to pick her body up and move seems like too great a challenge. Just reaching for another bottle. That's all there is.

Every time Vanessa comes she sends her away. She comes back and she sends her away. Again. And again. And each time it gets harsher, more severe, more damning, more final. And still she comes back. Until eventually she doesn't. 

She thought then that the pain would stop. But it increased. She thought the silence would be quiet, but it's louder. She thought that she would breathe, but she is suffocating. She thought that she could walk, but she is paralysed. She thought that she would move on, but she is stuck. She thought that she'd be saved, but she is doomed.

Her green eyes burn black. For Vanessa.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The start of reconciliation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Better than the first chapter.

For the first 5 days she drinks away the pain. Well she tries, at least. She can still feel it, but it's deadened through the haze. And the physical discomfort, the tightness in her skull, the dryness in her throat, the aching in her limbs, the sickness in her gut, takes her focus off the torture in her mind that threatens to kill her.

On the 6th day she wants to stop drinking and start feeling human again. 

On the 7th day she sobers up, dragging her wrecked and weary body outside, trudging endlessly through the fields and the trees until she is dropping with exhaustion. 

On the 8th day she sleeps. 

On the 9th day she purges. Her body, her digestion, her mind. 

On the 10th day she is ready. 

 

She stands outside the front door of the house across the road. Its occupants don't know she's there until Tracy comes barrelling out of the door, late for work. She pulls up short in front of her. 

"Oh."

She stands still, stays quiet. Uncertain. 

"Vanessa," Tracey calls back into the house. Vanessa hears the urgency in her voice and comes to the door. She sees Charity and turns away, walking back into the house. But she leaves the door open which Charity takes as a sign. 

Vanessa is in the kitchen, finishing up Johnny's breakfast. 

"Can we talk?"

"I have to get Johnny to nursery," she says, lifting Johnny down from his chair and picking up his coat. 

"Will you come back? Can I wait?"

Vanessa shrugs, picks her son up, grabs her keys and leaves. 

She sits on the sofa. She has spent plenty of time here on her own before, has been almost as at home here as she is in the pub, maybe more so. But today she makes herself small, hunched into the sofa. Not moving. Just waiting. For Vanessa to come back. 

She hears the door open. Vanessa walks into the kitchen without looking at her, not smiling like normal and telling silly tales of Johnny in the car, silently shrugging off her coat and hanging it up. Not touching her, not stroking her head as she can't help herself from doing when she passes her. Usually she would go straight to the kettle to make them a brew, but not today. Today she sits down in the chair, not next to Charity on the sofa, like she normally does. Like she used to do.

They sit in silence. Charity's head is bowed.

"You wanted to talk. To do that you have to say something." Vanessa sounds harsh, sarcastic.

Charity looks up with a start, her eyes pleading for leniency. "Ness."

"What?"

"I don't know where to start."

"Well find somewhere Charity. Don’t look to me to help you out here. You’ve lost that privilege."

"Please, Vanessa, say something. Anything."

"I have no words for you, Charity. Nothing to give you. No, that’s not true. I have 3 words. I’ve had them for a while. I've been waiting for the right time. This was supposed to be the right time. You know, after. But you can’t have them. You don’t deserve them now. I hold them, but I can’t give them to you. Not like this. So I have nothing. If you want to fix this then you have to do it. All of it. I won’t help you."

"But I can fix it?" Charity grabs at the glimmer of hope in Vanessa's words. "It is fixable?"

"Honestly, I don’t know. What have you got?"

"Ok. I'm sorry. I just needed....space. Time, you know. This has been hard, for me."

"If you want space you ask for space, Charity. I'm not some needy demon girlfriend who has to spend every minute with you, has to know every thought in your head. I would have given you as much space as you wanted. Whatever you needed. But you didn't ask, did you? You didn't even ask me to leave, push me away. You threw me away, Charity. You ripped me into pieces and dumped me in the trash."

"I didn't mean to."

"Oh well, that's fine then. If you didn't mean to. What am I so bothered about?"

"Ness..."

"You know, I really thought we had something. I thought you....yeah, I did. I thought you loved me. I thought we were building a family, a future together. And all the time you were just using me to get you through the trial. Well I've done that now. So you don't need me any more."

"Ness, I do. We were. We are. I still want that. I still want you. I can't lose you, Ness. Otherwise what was the point?"

"I don't know, Charity. I don't know anything any more." Vanessa's voice breaks and she puts her face in her hands, struggling for self-control.

"I didn't mean it, what I said. Those things. I just needed to lash out. At someone. At anyone. No, not anyone. You. You're like a part of me. The good part. And I wanted to destroy that part of me. Because it wasn't real. I don't deserve it. All I could hear was the bad stuff. The things they said. The things I did.

"I couldn't be in the same room as you. Everything you heard, the horrible, horrible things you know about me now. I couldn't look at you." She lifts her hand to wipe away the tears. "And it broke my heart, sending you away. I thought it would help. I was wrong. It hurt more, you not being there." 

"Do you think I pity you?" Vanessa's voice has a hint of softness, round the edges.

"Yes. Of course. Why wouldn't you? I'm pitiful."

"I don't pity you, Charity. You're the strongest, bravest person I've ever known. Not because of what you did in court. Not because you faced him. But because you knew how hard it would be, how much it would hurt you and you did it anyway. Because it was the right thing to do. You could have walked away from this a million times. But you didn't. You stayed. And you won. And I..." she swallows her words as she shakes her head and stands up. "Do you want tea?"

The faintest ghost of a smile curls at the edges of Charity's lips. "Do I sense a slight thaw?"

"Hmmm. We have a long way to go, lady." Vanessa walks into the kitchen to put the kettle on. 

"Vanessa, I'm not proud of how I've behaved," Charity stands and walks towards Vanessa, talking to her back. "And I can't tell you how sorry I am that I hurt you. That's like the worst thing, you know. It's like however hurt I am, hurting you is so much worse."

"Until you conveniently forget that and lash out again."

"I won't."

"I don't believe you. And I don't think I can go through this again. It's been hard on me too, you know. It's been hard to hear your story and it's been hard to stay strong. Seeing you in so much pain tears me apart. And then for you to rip me to shreds too..." her voice catches again and she looks down, leaning her hands on the counter for support.

Charity walks towards her but Vanessa raises her hand to stop her. "No. I'm not ready for you to touch me yet."

Charity nods and backs away. But she clocks the 'yet'. There is hope.

"And I wasn't using you. All of it was real, is real. Everything I've said, our boys. We are building a life together. It is real. I want that. More than I want anything."

Vanessa nods, acknowledging her words. "Do you blame me?"

"What? For what? No. Of course not."

"Charity. There is no room for anything other than total honesty in this conversation."

"Ok," Charity pauses, considering the question. "Well. Honestly? This wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for you. I only told you in the first place because it was you. And I trusted you, I trust you. I wouldn't have told anyone else. And I went to the police because of you, and Harriet. But mainly you. And I certainly wouldn't have seen it through. You're the only reason I didn't give up, that he's been sent down. So in that respect, you are responsible. In a way. And at times I have hated you for that."

"It's ok, Charity. I did push you. Too much, sometimes. So it's ok to blame me"

"But I don't, Vanessa. I'm grateful to you. I'm in your debt. If it wasn't for you I wouldn't have found Ryan." She takes the mug that Vanessa offers her and walk back to the sofa, noting that Vanessa sits down next to her, not on the chair. 

"If we.....if we're to move on from this, we need to know where we are with each other. It's ok if you resent me. Its better to acknowledge it now then we can figure out how to forgive. If we don't, there's not point going anywhere because it will kill us. Kill this. And I can't go through this again."

"I don't resent you, Ness. I said, I'm grateful."

"Hmmm. Well, I kind of hate you, at the moment. I can't unhear the words that you said, Charity. The tone of your voice. I wish I could, but I can't. That's what I hear when I look at you. I saw the fury and hate in your eyes. Hate for me. And I can't unsee that."

"Can I say other words, to replace them? Can I look at you differently?"

Vanessa shrugs.

Ok then. Here goes." Charity takes a deep breath, looks her square in the eyes, sincerity holding her back straight and her gaze true.

"I'm sorry for hurting you. I'm sorry I pushed you away. I'm sorry I lied about not wanting you. I do want you. With me. Every day. I want your face to be the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning. I want to fall asleep in your arms. I want us to bring up our boys, our beautiful boys, together. Be a family. I want to get up early on your birthday to help the little'uns make you a special breakfast that's grey and tastes like sticky fingers. I want to lock us in the cellar on our anniversary and buy you fluffy animal slippers and an ugly jumper for Christmas. I want to be there for you like you are for me. I want to wipe away your tears when you cry at silly films. And be the person who makes you laugh the most. I want you, Vanessa. I....I love you."

SiIence. Charity leans forwards and lifts her hand to cup Vanessa's face, brushing her tears away with her thumb. When Vanessa's eyes soften and her face cracks and she smiles, she leans forwards and their lips meet in a soft kiss. Then Charity takes her in her arms and pulls her into her chest. "I love you," she whispers, into her hair. "I'm sorry."

She feels Vanessa relax against her, but she keeps her grip firm. She wants to never let go. She makes a silent vow that she won't. She'll hold on, for ever. "Babe, are we ok?" she asks, tentatively.

"Not really, but we will be." Vanessa sighs. "We need to be careful with each other. Go gently. And we have to rebuild some trust. But we can get there, Charity. If we really want to."

"I want to Babe, more than anything."

"Me too," Vanessa nods against Charity's shoulder. "Me too."

"Can I stay with you today? I don't feel quite ready to let you out of my sight, having just got you back in it."

"You're such a charmer, Charity Dingle. Smoothest tongue this side of Rodney." She smiles and stands up. "I'll make more tea. We could watch a film. Or..."

"What, Babe?"

"Well I don't know about you but I haven't actually slept for days. I've missed you next to me and I'm exhausted. How about we have a bath and then go for a nap?"

"I can think of nothing I'd rather do. Except maybe...."

"I'm not sure we're ready to go there just yet, Charity." Vanessa smiles that suggestive smile of hers. "But lets see how we feel when we wake up."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. All feedback received with love.


End file.
